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'Pas à notre montre', says French data watchdog

THE SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook has been slapped with a €155,000 (around £132,000) fine by France's data protection watchdog for collecting information on users without their consent.

The Commission Nationale de l'Informatique (CNIL) said that, following a two-year probe of the social network and its shady data-collection practices, it has hit the firm with a €155,000 pentalty for "several breaches of the French Data Protection Act".

"The investigations conducted by the CNIL have revealed several failures," the watchdog said. "In particular it has been observed that Facebook proceeded to a massive compilation of personal data of Internet users in order to display targeted advertising.

"It has also been noticed that Facebook collected data on browsing activity of internet users on third-party websites, via the "datr" cookie, without their knowledge," it added, despite the social network having long-argued that it uses the cookie "to keep Facebook secure".

CNIL added that the fine - which was imposed on both Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland - was part of a wider European investigation also being carried out in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany into some of Facebook's practices.

Facebook, naturally, ain't happy about the CNIL's decision, having previously argued that only Irish data protection authority could order it to stop tracking users and halt the transfer of personal data to the United States.

"We take note of the CNIL's decision with which we respectfully disagree," Facebook said in a statement to Reuters.

"At Facebook, putting people in control of their privacy is at the heart of everything we do. Over recent years, we've simplified our policies further to help people understand how we use information to make Facebook better," it added.